Long before the Kiwanis Fair, there was the annual Basking Ridge Firemen’s Carnival. Beginning in 1910, the carnival was held on the grounds of the old Maple Avenue school (now site of the Bernards Township Library) and drew crowds from across the region. Beginning in 1912, the firemen hired a merry-go-round and it soon became
... Learn more
During our continuing digitization efforts, we found this photograph of the Brick Academy in Basking Ridge, NJ, in a Fire Department scrapbook. The building started life in 1809, as the Basking Ridge Classical School and later became a Bernards Township public school. In 1904, it was auctioned off to the Ancient Order of United Workmen
... Learn more
Editor’s Note: The Historical Society recently received an inquiry from a technician who services the commercial building at 125 South Finley Avenue in Basking Ridge. He reported seeing an apparition of a young boy in Civil War-period clothing in the basement. The technician was aware that a physician, who had served in the Civil War,
... Learn more
This pastoral scene is West Oak Street in 1910 going up the hill from present I-287 to Mount Airy Road. The farm was then known as the Courter Farm after its owner William Courter. The present Courter Street was named for the family. The large barn burned in the 1930s, but the farmhouse, built in
... Learn more
In 1870, Mary (Lewis) Goltra (1832-1896), a recent widow, built the house at 156 South Finley Avenue, Basking Ridge, NJ, perhaps with the assistance of her father-in-law, James P. Goltra. A farmer and local builder, James constructed the Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church in the late 1860s. Eventually, the house was owned by Mary’s daughter, Margaret
... Learn more
Maple Lawn, seen here in a c.1913 postcard, still stands at 30 East Craig Street in Basking Ridge, NJ. It is an impressive Victorian house in the Second Empire style featuring a Mansard roof. Architectural surveys (c.1990s) and John C. Smith’s historical map of Basking Ridge date the house to around 1865. However, the building
... Learn more
Basking Ridge made big-time society news in 1901 when a runaway New York heiress hid out at the Washington House for several days. Helen Bloodgood, age 18, the daughter of William Bloodgood of the American Felt Company disappeared from her 83 Irving Place home in Manhattan on September 19, 1901. The New York World reported
... Learn more
We’re deep into back-to-school season and what better way to celebrate than reading a great book about schools? Josephine M. Waltz’s Schoolhouses of Early Bernards Township is a nostalgic look back at the history of familiar and not-so-familiar local schoolhouses. Bernards Township was originally much larger than it is today, so the book covers schools
... Learn more
The house at 70 North Finley at the corner of Ridge Street in Basking Ridge has more history than most. The 1873 Beers Atlas of Somerset County shows it belonged to D. A. Minard (Dayton A. Minard), an investor who owned lands near the new Basking Ridge railroad station. The Rev. Peter S. Dagnault, the
... Learn more
Millionaires with mansions weren’t the only people who created postcards featuring their homes. Frank and Myra Boppe of Basking Ridge had this colorful one made sometime around 1913. The house was probably built around 1900 and is still standing at 36 North Maple Avenue. The Boppes bought the house and farm which they called “Glenside”
... Learn more
